NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover

I can't post the file (too big) so I have linked it to the original post on Mastodon (hope the link works for you :)

Simeon Schmauß made this 3D animation using hundreds of mission images and a 3D model of the rover

Curiosity's latest workspace imaged on mission sol 4471 March 5, 2025 ) after a drive of 19.6 meters (64.4 ft). This composite image is assembled from 15 overlapping L-MastCam subframe images, the images were Bayer reconstructed before assembly. The workspace covers an area about 2 meters (~6.5 feet) across, and shows details within the workspace accessible to the instruments and tools on the rover's 2 meter-long robotic arm. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) of a boulder about 40 meters (about 131 feet) away from the rover at the time. Curiosity acquired the image, showing the variety of structures and textures around the rover, on March 5, 2025 — sol 4471, or Martian day 4,471 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 01:47:03 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University

Earth planning date: Wednesday, March 5, 2025

The Martian landscape never ceases to amaze me, there is so much variation in texture and color! As a mineralogist, I marvel at them, but my colleagues trained in sedimentology regularly teach me how to see even more than the beauty of them: they can discern whether the materials that make up a rock were transported and laid down by the action of water or wind. The image above shows a rather unusual texture alongside more normal-looking laminated rocks. Just compare the small, brighter block in the foreground with the darker bigger rock in the center of the image. How should we interpret it? Well, that jury is still out. Are they sedimentary textures formed when the rock first was laid down, or shortly after, or are they textures that formed much later when water entered the rock and formed new minerals in the already existing rock? The latter would be more my area of research, and they are often called concretions. And I vividly remember the first concretions a rover ever found, the “blueberries.” Curiosity, of course, found many concretions, too. There is an interesting comparison between rocks that the Mars Exploration rover Opportunity found, and the one that Curiosity found very early in the mission, back at Yellowknife Bay. We have seen many more since, and the above might be another example.

The landscape directly around the rover today also has some interesting textures and, most important, some more regular-looking bedrock targets. Bedrock is what the team perceives to be the rocks that make up the part of the hill we are driving through. The dark blocks, like the one above, that are also strewn occasionally in the path of the rover are called float rocks, and we always look higher up into the hills to find out where they might have come from. As interesting as all those blocks and boulders are, they pose a huge challenge for the rover drivers. Today, they had managed to get us all the way to the intended stopping point, which in itself is a huge achievement. A mixture of large rocks and sand is just not conducive to any form of travel, and I always wonder how tiring it would be to just walk through the area. But we made it to the intended stopping point, driving just under 20 meters (about 65 feet), as intended. Unfortunately though, one of the rover’s wheels was perched on a rock in ways that posed a risk of dropping off that rock during an arm move. So, as is usual in those cases, we accept that contact science is not possible. The risk would just be too great that the rover moves just at the wrong moment and the arm bumps into the rock that an instrument is investigating at that moment. So, safety first, we decided to keep the arm tucked in and focus on remote science.

The team quickly pivoted to add some remote science to the already existing observations. As you might imagine in a terrain as interesting as this, Mastcam did get a workout. There are seven different observations in the plan! It looks into the distance to the Texoli Butte we are observing as we drive along it, and at a target, “Brown Mountain.” Looking into the many different features are also imaging activities on the targets “Placerita Canyon,” “Humber Park,” and two others just named “trough,” which is a descriptive term for little trough features the team is tracking for a while with the quest to better understand their formation. ChemCam has a LIBS investigation on target “Inspiration Point,” and two long-distance RMI (Remote Micro Imager) observations. One is truly at a long distance on Gould Mesa, another of the mounts we are observing as we go along. There is another RMI activity closer to the rover, to investigate more of those very interesting structures.

We also have environmental observations in the plan, observing the opacity of the atmosphere and of REMS investigations are occurring throughout the plan. REMS is our “weather station” measuring atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, winds, and ultraviolet radiation levels. DAN looks at the surface to measure the water and chlorine content in the rocks that the rover traverses over and RAD is looking up to the sky to measure the radiation that reaches the Martian surface. We do not often mention those in our blocks, because we are so used to seeing them there every single sol, doing their job, quietly in the background.

With so much to do, the only remaining question was where to drive. That was discussed at length, weighing the different science reasons to go to places along the path, and after much deliberation we decided to go to one of the float rocks, but reserve the option to make a right turn in the next plan, to get to another interesting place. All those discussions are so important to make sure we are making the most of the power we have at this cold time of the year, and getting all the science we can get. I am excited to see the data from today’s plan… and to find out where we end up. Not with a wheel on a rock, please, Mars — that would be a good start. But if we do, I am absolutely confident there will be lots to investigate anyway!

Image - Left navigation camera - Sol 4471 (2025-03-05T04:39:47.000Z)

Map:

Drive details:

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mast Camera (Mastcam), a close-up of the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), an instrument that measures the abundance of chemical elements in rocks and soils on the Martian surface. Located on the turret at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm, APXS is about the size of a cupcake, and this image shows the handwritten markings on the instrument’s sensor head. Curiosity captured this image on March 23, 2024 — sol 4134, or Martian day 4,134 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 21:59:21 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Written by Scott VanBommel, Planetary Scientist at Washington University

Earth planning date: Monday, March 3, 2025

Curiosity continued steady progress through the upper sulfate unit and toward its next major science waypoint: the boxwork structures. Our rover is currently driving south through a local canyon between “Texoli” and “Gould Mesa.” This route may expose the same rock layers observed while climbing along the eastern margin of the Gediz Vallis channel, prompting several science activities in today’s plan. With winter still gripping Gale crater and limiting the power available for science, the team carefully balanced a number of priorities.

The weekend’s drive positioned the rover within reach of light-toned laminated bedrock and gray float rock. We kicked off our two-sol plan by removing dust on a representative bedrock target, “Ramona Trail,” before analyzing with APXS and imaging with MAHLI. ChemCam acquired compositional analyses on a laminated gray float rock, “Josephine Peak,” in addition to long-distance images of Texoli. Mastcam documented key features, capturing images of Josephine Peak, Texoli, “Gobblers Knob,” and “Fort Tejon.” In addition to these science-driven images, Mastcam also acquired two images of APXS before a planned drive of about 21 meters (about 69 feet).

As Curiosity continues toward the boxwork structures, the intricate patterns we observe will provide valuable clues about the history of Mars. While the Mastcam images acquired today of the APXS sensor head won’t directly contribute to the boxwork study, they capture a more human aspect of the mission. With each “APXS horseshoe” image, such as the one featured in this blog from sol 4134, hand-written markings on the APXS sensor head appear alongside Martian terrain, a reminder that this incredible journey is driven by the human touch of a dedicated team on Earth who designed, built, and continue to operate this remarkable spacecraft.

15 overlapping Bayer reconstructed L-MastCam images assembled into a mosaic using MS-ICE.

The images were acquired on March 3, 2025 but only placed on the mission server a few hours ago.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 28, 2025

Curiosity continues to climb roughly southward through the layered sulfate strata toward the “boxwork” features. Although the previous plan's drive successfully advanced the rover roughly 21 meters southward (about 69 feet), the drive had ended with an awkwardly perched wheel. Because of this, unfortunately it was considered too risky to unstow the arm for contact science in this plan.

Nevertheless the team made the most of the imaging and LIBS observations available from the rover's current location. A large Mastcam mosaic was planned on the nearby Texoli butte to capture its sedimentary structures from the rover’s new perspective. Toward the west, the boxwork strata exposed on “Gould Mesa” were observed using the ChemCam long-distance imaging capability, with Mastcam providing color context.

Several near-field Mastcam mosaics also captured some bedding and diagenetic structure in the nearby blocks as well as some modern aeolian troughs in the finer-grained material around them.

On the nearby blocks, two representative local blocks (“Gabrelino Trail” and “Sespe Creek”) are to be “zapped” with the ChemCam laser to give us LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) compositional measurements. The original Gabrelino Trail on Earth near the JPL campus is currently closed due to damage from the recent wildfires.

Meanwhile, the season on Mars (L_s ~ 50, or a solar longitude of about 50 degrees, heading into southern winter) has brought with it the opportunity to observe some recurring atmospheric phenomena: It's aphelion cloud belt season, as well as Hadley cell transition season, during which a more southerly air mass crosses over Gale Crater.

This plan includes an APXS atmospheric observation (no arm movement required!) to measure argon and a ChemCam passive-sky observation to measure O2, which is a small (less than 1%) but measurable component in the Martian atmosphere. Dedicated cloud altitude observations, a phase function sky survey, and zenith and suprahorizon movies have also been included in the plan to characterize the clouds. As usual, the rover also continues to monitor the modern environment with measurements of atmospheric opacity via imaging, temperature, and humidity with REMS, and the local neutron environment with DAN.

Map -

Drive Data -

Curiosity continuing its traverse to the southwest.

Curiosity Rover - Sol 4464 L-MastCam Workspace Assembled in MS-ICE from 15 overlapping Bayer reconstructed frames Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University

Earth planning date: Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025

The fine detail of the image above reminds us once again that geoscience — on Mars and on Earth — is an observational science. If you look at the image for a few moments, you will see that there are different areas made of different textures. You will also observe that some features appear to be more resistant to weathering than others, and as a consequence stand out from the surface or the rims of the block. Sedimentologists will study this and many other images in fine detail and compare them to similar images we have acquired along the most recent drive path. From that they put together a reconstruction of the environment billions of years in the past: Was it water or wind that laid down those rocks, and what happened next? Many of the knobbly textures might be from water-rock interaction that happened after the initial deposition of the material. We will see; the jury is out on what these details tell us, and we are looking closely at all those beautiful images and then will turn to the chemistry data to understand even more about those rocks.

In the caption of the image above it says “merged” images. This is an imaging process that happens aboard the rover — it takes two (or more) images of the same location on the same target, acquired at different focus positions, and merges them so a wider range of the rock is in focus. This is especially valuable on textures that have a high relief, such as the above shown example. The rover is quite clever, isn’t it?

In today’s plan MAHLI does not have such an elaborate task, but instead it is documenting the rock that the APXS instrument is measuring. The team decided that it is time for APXS to measure the regular bedrock again, because we are driving out of an area that is darker on the orbital image and into a lighter area. If you want, you can follow our progress on that orbital image. (But I am sure many of the regular readers of this blog know that!)

That bedrock target was named “Trippet Ranch.” ChemCam investigates the target “San Ysidro Trail,” which is a grayish-looking vein. As someone interested in water-rock interactions for my research, I always love plans that have the surrounding rock (the APXS target in this case) and the alteration features in the same location. This allows us to tease out which of the chemical components of the rock might have moved upon contact with water, and which ones have not.

As we are driving through very interesting terrain, with walls exposed on the mesas — especially Gould mesa — and lots of textures in the blocks around us, there are many Mastcam mosaics in today’s plan! The mosaics on “Lytle Creek,” “Round Valley,” “Heaton Flat,” “Los Liones,” and the single image on “Mount Pinos” all document this variety of structures, and another mosaic looks right at our workspace. It did not get a nice name as it is part of a series with a more descriptive name all called “trough.” We often do this to keep things together in logical order when it comes to imaging series. The long-distance RMIs in today’s plan are another example of this, as they are just called “Gould,” followed by the sol number they will be taken on — that’s 4466 — and a and b to distinguish the two from each other. Gould Mesa, the target of both of them, exposes many different structures and textures, and looking at such walls — geologists call them outcrops — lets us read the rock record like a history book! And it will get even better in the next few weeks as we are heading into a small canyon and will have walls on both sides. Lots of science to come in the next few downlinks, and lots of science on the ground already! I’d better get back to thinking about some of the data we have received recently, while the rover is busy exploring the ever-changing geology and mineralogy on the flanks of Mount Sharp.

Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 21, 2025

Since first encountering the sulfate-bearing unit around Sol 3540, we have detected minerals and elemental concentrations consistent with the presence of various salts and a general drying out of Mars climate (read ”NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Reaches Long-Awaited Salty Region”). Salton Sea in California is a saline lake, meaning it has high concentrations of salty minerals formed as a result of evaporation processes dominating over input of fresh water. As such, we thought it would be a fitting name for one of our rock targets to be analyzed by the APXS and MAHLI instruments in this weekend plan. We have observed a variety of different textures and colors associated with the sulfate-bearing unit. The target “Salton Sea” is an example of one such texture — a dark-toned, relatively smooth, platy layer. Will the chemistry indicate the presence of salty minerals, some of which may be the same as those found at Salton Sea? Other rock targets to be analyzed in this busy weekend plan include “Wellman Divide,” another APXS and MAHLI target on a thicker, dark-toned, rougher textured layer, and “Goodykoontz” and “Paseo del Mar,” both ChemCam LIBS targets, on a nodule and a dark, platy layer, respectively.

We also continue to document the layers of rock exposed within several buttes and mesas around us (“Dragon Tooth” and “Texoli” buttes, and “Gould Mesa”) with CCAM RMI and Mastcam imaging. Curiosity will hopefully climb though equivalent layers as we continue our ascent of Mount Sharp, so these images can help with interpretation when we finally encounter them on the ground. Mastcam will also image a trough in the sand surrounding one of the bedrock blocks — a feature that has been observed relatively frequently lately.

The atmospheric scientists also have an action-packed plan with coordinated APXS atmospheric and ChemCam passive-sky observations to measure argon and oxygen, respectively, as well as standard activities. These observations help to track changes in seasonal atmospheric flow from equatorial to polar regions on Mars. Standard atmospheric monitoring activities included in the plan are: Navcam dust devil movies (x2), suprahorizon movies (x2), a zenith movie, line of sight observations (x2), and a cloud altitude observation, as well as Mastcam tau observations (x2).

After a planned drive of about 49 meters (about 161 feet) on the second sol of this three-sol weekend plan, the MARDI camera will take an image of the terrain beneath the rover. The plan is rounded out with standard REMS, DAN and RAD activities.

Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick

Credits for the de-Bayered frames: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

New workspace (L-NavCam) and details of the drive of 49.56 meters SSW during sol 4462 to site 113.2040 will be posted in the comments

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

Source

From the Article:

"The Curiosity rover discovered evidence for long-lived ancient lakes in 2014, and now 10 years later Curiosity has discovered ancient lakes that were free of ice, offering an important insight into the planet's early climate."

L-MastCam mosaic of the sol 4456 Workspace. Assembled in MS-ICE using fredk's Bayer reconstructed frames

15 frames from the L-MastCam

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

Drive data

New workspace

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA

Sol 4454 MastCam mosaic of target “Pyramid Lake” from Kevin M Gill

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

Source

Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 14, 2025

Curiosity is continuing to make progress along the strategic route, traversing laterally across the sulfate (salt) bearing unit toward the boxwork structures. The team celebrated the completion of another successful drive when we received the downlink this morning, and then we immediately got to work thinking about what’s next. There is a holiday in the United States on Monday, so instead of the typical three-sol weekend plan, we actually planned four sols, which will set us up to return to planning next Tuesday.

The first sol of the plan focuses on remote sensing, and we’ll be taking several small Mastcam mosaics of features around the rover. One of my favorite targets the team picked is a delightfully pointy rock visible toward the left of the Navcam image shown above. The color images we’ll take with Mastcam will give us more information about the textures of this rock and potentially provide insight into the geologic forces that transformed it into this comical shape. The team chose what I think is a very appropriate name for this Martian pyramid-shaped target — “Pyramid Lake.” The terrestrial inspiration behind this name is a human-made reservoir (lake) near Los Angeles with a big (also human-made) pyramidal hill in it.

On the second sol of the plan, we’ll use the instruments on Curiosity’s arm to collect data of rock targets at our feet, including “Strawberry Peak,” a bumpy piece of bedrock, “Lake Arrowhead,” a smooth piece of bedrock, and “Skyline Trail,” a dark float rock. ChemCam will also collect chemical data of Skyline Trail, “Big Tujunga” — which is similar to Strawberry Peak — and “Momyer.” We’ll also take the first part of a 360-degree color mosaic with Mastcam!

In the third sol of the plan, we’ll complete the 360-degree mosaic and continue driving to the southwest along our strategic route. The fourth sol is pretty quiet, with some atmospheric observations and a ChemCam AEGIS. Atmospheric observations are additionally sprinkled throughout other sols of the plan. This time of year we are particularly interested in studying the clouds above Gale crater!

I’m looking forward to the nice long weekend, and returning on Tuesday morning to see everything Curiosity accomplished.

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth planning date: Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025

I woke up this morning to my weather app telling me it felt like minus 15° C (5°F) outside. On days like this, it can take me a little longer to get myself up and out into the world. Curiosity has a similar problem — as we head toward winter and it gets colder and colder in Gale Crater, Curiosity has to spend more time warming up to do things like driving and all our good science. I’ve also been watching a couple winter storms that are expected in the next few days here in Toronto. Luckily, Curiosity doesn’t have to deal with snowstorms, and our drive in the last plan went ahead as planned and put us in a good position to go ahead with contact science today, a relief after having to forego it on Monday.

The contact science location that the geology team chose is called “Catalina Island,” the flat rock you can see in almost the center of the image above. As you can likely also see above, there’s a whole jumble of rocks in that image, and Mastcam and ChemCam have picked out a couple others to take a look at. These are “Point Dume,” which will be the target of ChemCam’s laser spectrometer, and “Whittier Narrows,” on which Mastcam will image some linear features. Mastcam and ChemCam are also turning their gazes further afield for Mastcam targets “Cleghorn Ridge,” “Cuyamaca Peak,” “Kratka Ridge,” and two long-distance ChemCam mosaics of the top of the Wilkerson butte and a spot a little further down known as “Pothole Trail.”

Much like I’m keeping an eye out the window on the changing weather here, Curiosity is also continuing to keep an eye on the environment in Gale Crater. Even though it’s not the dusty season, we continue to monitor the dust around us and in the atmosphere with a dust-devil survey and a tau. But we’re especially interested in what the clouds are up to right now, which we’re checking in on with our normal zenith and suprahorizon movies, and our cloud-season-only Phase Function Sky Survey. This is a series of movies covering the whole sky that we can use to determine how sunlight interacts with the individual water-ice crystals in the clouds.

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University